The general rules of the game go like this: At the beginning of your turn, you draw five cards. You get to play two of them (except on the first turn of the game, where you can only play one). Each card has three levels. When you play a card, its leveled-up version is placed in your discard pile. There are five lanes into which creature cards can be played, and on each turn creatures will fight with either the opposing creature in the same lane, or attack the opponent directly if there isn't one. At the end of the turn, you discard the cards you haven't played, but those ones don't level up. Every four turns your discard pile is reshuffled into your deck, giving the possibility to draw some of those leveled-up cards. The first player to reduce their opponent from 120 to 0 Life Points wins.

The game is set in a world where there's no sun, the only source of light and heat being the titular SolForge, a giant Magitek tower. The Forgeborn, those with the power to harness the SolForge's magic, fight for domination of the area surrounding the Forge. There are four factions of Forgeborn: the Alloyin, Nekrium, Tempys, and Uterra.

The game is currently at Post-Beta stage for PC, iPad, iPhone and Android, and is free-to-play. The PC version is available through Steam, while the iOS versions are available at the Mac App store and the Android version from Google Store. Players start with some starter decks, and can play daily for silvers (the in-game currency), cards, booster packs and also tournament tickets. Players can also spend real money for Gold (the other in-game currency), which will let players buy alternate art cards, as well as allow anything purchased with said Gold to be shared with other players.

The game's expansion sets are released every few months or so, and each set is often accompanied by additional mini-releases. The chronological list of expansions the game has after its Open Beta, launched in August 2013, is currently as follows:

Rise of the Forgeborns (March 2014) introduced the Forgeborns, the first cards to cap at level 4 instead of the usual 3, "Allied", which gives cards bonus benefit if you have cards from other factions.

Secrets of Solis (August 2014) introduced multiple new mechanics such as "Consistent", which guarantees a card to be drawn within four turns, "Solbind", where a card brings along additional cards thus increasing the number of cards in the deck, and "Overload", which causes cards to disappear for the rest of the game once played, reducing the number of cards in the deck.

Imprisoned Heralds (November 2014) contains some Spells which evolve into creatures, plus a few new mechanics such as "Assault", where a creature gets a bonus if summoned without opposition, and "Upgrade", in which a creature gets some bonus by replacing other creatures, a mechanic which in turn is accompanied by creatures who give you benefit when they get replaced.

Darkforge Uprising (mid-2015) introduced the Darkforged, creatures that become more powerful when played together.

Raiders Unchained (mid-2016), introduced "Raid", where you get benefits when three of your creatures attack at once during your turn, and "Formation", where a card gains bonus when placed between two other creatures.

SolForge provides examples of:

Anti-Frustration Features: In case you accidentally (or otherwise) try to use a harmful effect such as damage to your own creatures, or beneficial effect such as healing to your opponent, the game will ask you if you are sure about doing it.

Because you can have a maximum of three copies of a card in a deck, the game disallows you to sell cards for silver if you only have three or fewer copies of that card in your collection. In other words, once you have a playset of any given card, you will always have a playset of that card.

Furthermore, when you mass-sell cards for Silver, you are given the option to not sell excess cards that are shareable. So you can mass-sell cards knowing that those really were purely excesses that you toss.

A new mechanic called "Consistent" was introduced in Secrets of Solis, which has cards with said keyword guaranteed to show up at some point in the next player Rank. This prevents some measurement of "level screw" frustration.

Anti-Magic: The "Fun Police" is a deck created by Foxhull, which specializes in countering several different strategies.

Artificial Stupidity: The AI can be very stupid at times. Among its worst plays: Not replacing a creature that has been debuffed to death thus letting those useless creatures clog up the board, replacing a strong creature with a weaker one instead, putting creatures at the wrong lane thus unable to defend properly, and so on.

Awesome, but Impractical: Forge Guardian Omega boasts a ridiculous stat compared to all other creatures of compara. The catch is that to summon one, you must sacrifice five Guardian Pieces on board (that usually means at least three turns of placing the Pieces), one of which must be an active Forge Guardian Gamma (which, by itself, is quite fragile). That, and Omega is just as susceptible to all sorts of "kill" spells such as Botanimate and Dreadbolt. Secrets of Solis brings a slightly easier method to bring out Omega in the form of Forge Guardian Delta, which puts a copy of Omega into your discard pile for you to play normally after the next re-shuffle. Guardians Assemble from Raiders Unchained provides further support to Forge Guardians.

Botanimate and Dendrify transform an opposing creature into a tree (with Botanimate being hard-gated but shrinks the creature more)

Metamorphosis transforms a target creature into an egg (that hatches into a a 9/9 Feywing when that player goes into the next player level).

Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Yeti: Deliberately invoked with the Uranti. Apparently one of the Uranti Yeti was actually called "Big Foot" during playtesting.

Bribing Your Way to Victory: Played straight in that you can obviously pay money to build up your collection quickly, but subverted *and* averted in several key ways.

Subverted in that you can craft any card in the game with silver.

Subverted after Card Sharing was introduced, which allows you to send an unbound (ie; paid with real money) card to someone while keeping an unbound copy of it. Finding a partner to split on pre-constructed decks is now quite common.

Averted in the sense that there are some powerful heroic cards (such as Broodqueen and Bramblewood Tracker) which are in several top tier decks. Heroic cards often form the backbone of a solid deck.

Averted in some of the specialty Weekend Warrior queues. Also averted at the Unofficial SolForge Ladder, which has Unheroic and Unlegendary queues.

Came Back Strong: Several Nekrium cards become more powerful once they dig their way out of the grave.

Cameo: Tyco and Gabe shows up in the alternate art for Alloyin Strategist. This probably ties in with Penny Arcade's blog post promoting Solforge some time before its Open Beta launch.

Cannibalism Superpower: Several Nekrium cards, mostly involving Grimgaunts or Abominations. Xithian Shambler literally adds the attack/health of a creature adjacent to it to its own through destroying it.

Combining Mecha: The original method to summon Forge Guardian Omega was to have five cards of a specific type on the field.

Confusion Fu: Playing a card is not the only way to level it up; Several Alloyin cards can level up other cards, and discarding cards without playing them still levels them up. In the old client, doing the latter two actions levels up the cards without showing them to the opponent, forcing them to try and guess what the player's end game strategy may be.

Crutch Character: Some creatures have above average stats at Level 1, but doesn't grow significantly in later levels. These creatures are usually used to finish the game as soon as possible before your opponent overwhelms you with their superior level 3 cards. There is even a deck called "Big Dumb Animals", which relies completely on powerful Level 1 monsters that scale terribly into the late game.

Damage Over Time: Poison status deals some number of damage per turn to the afflicted creature. And these damage stack, meaning that a creature getting hit by multiple Poison status can take heavy damage per turn without even battling.

Gradually becoming more than just a casual archtype, there are now cards that casts poison on the player themselves, plus other cards (Dissolve, Venomdrinker) that interact with creatures who have poison. However, some people think that these supports have Gone Horribly Right.

Death of a Thousand Cuts: Several infinite draw decks use this method, specifically using Crypt Conjurer or Ice Torrent.

De-Power: There are several Alloyin cards that remove abilities from creatures and, in case of Wipe Away, players. Some of this can be used offensively (e.g., to weaken a dangerous creature), but just as often they can be used to help your own creatures (by removing their drawbacks).

Bron, The Wild Tamer is a card that you can play by replacing an Dinosaur you control with it, transforming into Dino Knight. When the Dino Knight is destroyed, it reverts back to Bron, signalling that he has dismounted the Dinosaur.

The addition of Bron, plus the spell Thunderstomp, has made Dinosaurs into a viable archtype. As of Darkforged Uprising, Dinosaurs is now a Tier 1 deck.

Evolving Attack: Almost every card basically is one. While the maximum level of any given card ranges from 1 to 4, most cards cap at 3, and only Forgeborns can reach level 4.

Excuse Plot: If you're the sort of person who needs a good reason why the dinosaurs are fighting the zombies, this probably isn't the game for you. Blame the current lack of flavor texts for that.

Gradual Regeneration: The regenerate ability seen on cards like Heart Tree causes it to regain some amount of health per turn (varying by level), up to its maximum health.

With the release of Zombie Dreadknight, cards with regeneration can be buffed to take further advantage of regaining health.

Homage: The comedic alternate art Super Chrogias is an homage to the old Superhero trope where the superhero goes into a Phone Booth to change costume.

The Forge Guardians were suspected to be an obvious homage to Voltron by many. This was confirmed when long-term player Outrageous leveraged several Voltron references leading up to his spoiler article being published.

Literally Shattered Lives: Frozen Solid used to temporarily freezes a creature, but regardless, if that creature takes damage before the effect wears out, it will die. There are other cards that does roughly the same feat.

Luck Manipulation Mechanic: From Secrets of Solis, cards with "Consistent" are guaranteed to be somewhere in the top twenty cards of your deck, ensuring that you will be able to draw them within 4 turns and thus allowing you to play/level them up.

Magikarp Power: Some cards such as Chrogias, Scorchmane Dragon, and Iron Maiden; very pathetic at level 1, nigh-unstoppable at level 3.

Play Every Day: The game gives rewards for players who login and play every day.

Planet of Hats: Each of the four factions has a hat: magitek, necromancy, elements, and wildlife.

Power Equals Rarity: One of the primary complaints about the game is that legendary cards are too often so obviously more powerful than the less rare cards.

Power Tattoo: A subsection of Tempys humans are called the Asir, who apparently are adorned with elemental tattoos as a status symbol.

Rocks Fall Everybody Dies: There are several cards that can damage or kill multiple creatures, if not all of them, at once, but among best examples are Ambriel's Edict (kills everyone except the highest-attack creature on each side) and level 4 Varna, Immortal King (kills everyone else but revives one of your creatures who gets killed along the way).

Sealed Badass in a Can: Some legendaries in Imprisoned Heralds start off as spells. Play them until Level 3, and they become powerful creatures ready to destroy your opponent.

Sequence Breaking: Cards in play and in hand usually cannot have higher level than the player's rank, and even cards in discard pile usually cannot be two or more levels ahead than the players (i.e., you cannot have a level 3 or 4 card in discard pile when you are at Rank 1). However, there is a rare breed of creatures such as Leafkin Progenitor who can reach level 2 or even 3 on the field before you even gain a rank, making those creatures harder to deal with using level-gated effects.

Also, there are several Alloyin cards who, at level 3, can level up your Forgeborn to level 4 before you reach Rank 4. Notably, Killion, Infinity Warden, one such card capable of that strategy, is also a Forgeborn himself.

Self-Duplication: One of Uterra's specialty, even if not unique (as in, other factions have some self-duplication powers, but not as prolific as the Uterra).

Touch of Death: Several creatures have this ability, such as Blight Walker. Some spells such as Touch of Blight, also grants this ability. There's also the Nekrium Forgeborn Cercee, who at level 4 can instant-kill a player with just a scratch.

Tournament Play: Both within the in-game client for game rewards, and also on the Unofficial Solforge Ladder.

Played straight by several teams, who test decks extensively with one another before a tournament.

Why Won't You Die?: Nekrium has several ways to make sure creatures that die won't stay dead, such as a level 3 Zimus, The Undying or Immortal Echoes.

Zerg Rush: Several Uterra cards are good at flooding the board with creatures (in particular low level Phytobomb, which floods both yours and your opponent's field), and this goes in handy with their other tactic: Mass-buffing.

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